The apartment: Brownstone living, at almost the same price Our great elderly and eccentric landlord lived in the parlor floor of the Fort Greene, Brooklyn brownstone where we lived, which he'd bought in the early 1970s. When he died, the house had to be sold, since he had no close family. A couple and their friend bought it and, in the end, "required the building to be delivered vacant" (the real estate agent's actual words). We were forced to leave our $2,350/month 1,000-square-foot one-bedroom. We decided to move to Bedford-Stuyvesant. We wanted to stay in Brooklyn, and it was the neighborhood where we could get a lot of space for our budget.